When Is 'Peaky Blinders' Season 5 Out? Trailers, Rumours And Everything You Need To Know

Peaky Blinders, the show that launched a billion ill-fated flirtations with flat caps, is set to return for its fifth season this year.

Will the Shelby family's criminal empire come crumbling down? Or will Tommy’s newfound political influence help them extend their power? And what impact will the devastating financial crash of 1929 have had on the Peaky Blinders’ ambitions?

Not a clue, obviously. But here’s what we actually do know about the long-awaited fifth season…

Peaky Blinders season 5 Trailer

The first trailer was released on 30 July.

On the 28 June we caught our first glimpse of Tommy in his new role as an MP in the new season.

By order of the Peaky Blinders, we just dropped every single episode back onto @BBCiPlayer

It'll also be moved from BBC One to BBC Two, with series creator Steven Knight telling Metro: "Peaky has had a very odd life because a lot of series tend to start tailing off after a while. But Peaky is just getting stronger and stronger, and people are finding it all over the world.

"Peaky is something people have found themselves. It’s never been given a huge push. People have discovered it and feel they are part of it; they’re opening up bars, having haircuts and dressing up which is great. And I think in the end, BBC Two is fantastic, but the time had come for it to possibly be offered to a bigger audience."

Meanwhile, the first official Peaky Blinders festival will be held in Birmingham on the 14-15 September, featuring live music from Mercury Prize nominees Anna Calvi and Nadine Shah and Scottish band Primal Scream.

"I wanted to put together a festival sanctioned by us but not to comment on anybody else's attempt," creator and writer Steven Knight told BBC News.

How will it play out?

The official plot synopsis reads: "Series five of Steven Knight's crime family saga finds the world thrown into turmoil by the financial crash of 1929. Opportunity and misfortune are everywhere.

"When Tommy Shelby MP (Cillian Murphy) is approached by a charismatic politician with a bold vision for Britain, he realises that his response will affect not just his family's future but that of the entire nation."

BBC/Caryn Mandabach/Robert Viglasky

Speaking about the upcoming series, Steven Knight said: "The story of the Peaky Blinders and of the Shelby family gets woven into the political fabric of Britain and Europe as the 1920s end and the thirties begin. Tommy Shelby faces the darkest force he has ever faced and his struggle is as relevant today as it was then."

The show’s creator also revealed that the main antagonists for the season will be “a particular gang called The Billy Boys” from Glasgow, but filming leaks suggest that the Shelbys will be travelling to the US at some point.

At the end of season 4, we saw Tommy get elected MP for Birmingham South by a landslide, and actor Paul Anderson has revealed that his character, Arthur, will also benefit from his brother's new political influence.

Speaking to Metro, he explained, “What it gives Arthur and his family is more power. Tommy is in a position of power, and he can only get stronger in that position. We’ll all have more cover, more opportunity and more protection.

“Becoming an MP is just Tommy expanding his empire – his ambition is to have power in a lot of areas and that’s just another extension of his power.”

Knight has a lot of confidence in the new season, telling the Radio Times: "I personally believe – and I think everybody involved believes – that this is the best series yet, for all sorts of reasons. There’s a lot going on, there’s a lot of bells ringing, there’s a lot of conflict happening."

In a recent interview with Bustle, Knight revealed that Tommy will undergo an "unexpected transformation" through the next two seasons. "[Series seven] will tell a different story, where Tommy Shelby... will be redeemed, and he will become good."

Packy Lee, who plays fan favourite Johnny Dogs, says that some plot points in the new series could split fan opinion. "I can't give too much away, but there are a few funny scenes," Lee told BelfastLive. "And some big, big scenes which we don't know how people are going to take them."

The loose-lipped Lee has also said that there could be more famous faces dropping in during season five. "That's the type of thing the show is doing at the minute, getting a few surprise guests to make cameo appearances," he told BelfastLive. Presumably he's now been put under house arrest in case he lets anything else slip.

Hunger Games star Sam Claflin joins as Oswald Mosley, the notorious far-right politician who founded the British Union of Fascists in 1932, and creator Steven Knight says the emergence of the fascist leader has lessons for today.

"The things that were happening in the time we are setting the series have an unbelievable relevance to what’s going on now: the rise of populism, fascism, racism. What I hope the experience one might take from this is what was the consequence of what happened the last time. Nine years later, there was a world war."

The new season begins around two years before Mosley's emergence in the political mainstream, and leaked set photos show members of the public performing Roman salutes outside one of his political rallies. "I couldn’t feel more privileged to be invited to join this iconic show," Claflin said in a statement.

The actor told Metro about the moment he arrived on set, saying: "‘As a fanboy I will never forget my first day on the set I had to go for a make up and hair test and shave a moustache.

"I was out in Birmingham and it was Charlie’s Yard and all the Peaky boys were there and I was like, 'oh this is Peaky Blinders', in the black country.

"It was magical and that’s the only way to describe it, it’s magic. Cillian is the most down to earth man with his Irish accent then the second he turns into Tommy Shelby you get like, 'oh my God hello', and then Paul Anderson comes in as Arthur… it really is magical."

Steven Knight has opened up about how the inclusion of Oswald Mosley brings attention to the worrying rise of fascism in our modern times.

"The things that were happening in the time we are setting the series have an unbelievable relevance to what’s going on now: the rise of populism, fascism, racism. What I hope the experience one might take from this is what was the consequence of what happened the last time. Nine years later, there was a world war."

Finn Cole, who plays exiled Shelby family accountant Michael, says that Mosley isn't the only nefarious politician to feature in the new series. Talking to Esquire at the season 5 premiere in Birmingham, he said:

"The most important thing for us was to say that this gangster world is terrible and bleak but there are rules, [whereas] politics is terrible and bleak and there aren't any rules. That the Houses of Parliament is a darker, more evil place than the streets of Birmingham.

"Oswald Mosley was quite an evil man, he wasn't a very nice man, and I think we'll find that there are going to be plenty more ‘not very nice men’ in government as years go on. But that's an important representation to have."

Elsewhere, we'll see The New Mutants' Anya Taylor-Joy, Mother's Brian Gleeson and The Fall's Emmett J Scanlan join the cast.

Who’s not returning?

Knight is philosophical about losing fan-favourite Alfie Solomons, Tom Hardy's notorious criminal who died at the end of the last season. "It’s like when Sam Neill was no longer in it [after series one and two]. That felt like a loss, but you move on. You have to," he told the Radio Times.

"I didn't know that was coming," Anderson told Digital Spy. "We were unsure... there was a whole thing about whether or not Alfie would live or die, or get shot or not. It was up for debate and discussion.

"I know that Tom didn't want to go. So there was this whole thing."

BBC

Charlotte Riley, who played wealthy widow May Carleton, revealed to Digital Spy that she wasn't asked to return for season 5, but would be up for a Peaky Blinders movie.

“I don’t think that my character will be coming back,” Riley said. “I mean, I would go back in a heartbeat [if asked], because I just love it so much.”

“I wonder if they’ll ever do a film of it? That would be quite good. There were rumours, but I don’t know if any of them are true. I suppose, what would you gain from making it only 90 minutes long? That’s kind of the argument in a nutshell, isn’t it, of why people do long-form TV?”

Contrary to rumours, Al Capone will not be making an appearance. The legendary criminal kingpin was mentioned in the series four finale, but Knight firmly poo-pooed the idea. "There's not gonna be any Al Capone. There isn't, there really isn't".

Which begs the question: who will Stephen Graham play when he inevitably appears on the show? Fans assumed that his past role as the criminal kingpin in Boardwalk Empire made him a shoo-in for the character, but that won't be the case. Knight confirmed on the 'Obsessed with... Peaky Blinders' BBC podcast that Graham won't be appearing in season five, but stopped short of revealing who he will play in the sixth or seventh. “I’ve already got it and I’m not going to tell you,” he said.

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